Naperville Told To Turn Off The Spigot

June 04, 1986|By Stevenson Swanson.

Naperville, plagued by frequent water shortage problems, issued more than 100 warnings to homeowners and property developers over the weekend as the city`s second summer ban on the laying of sod and sprinkling of lawns took effect.

To enforce the restrictions, designed to relieve heavy hot-weather demand on the city`s limited water supply, the Naperville water and wastewater department deployed teams of inspectors, according to department director Allan Poole. On Friday, the department called landscaping businesses in the area to remind them of the ban.

``We`re dealing with communication here,`` he said. ``A lot of them didn`t realize the ban had started. Most of the people were happy to comply.``

Poole said that in anticipation of the ban, which took effect on Sunday, property owners and builders laid a large amount of sod on Saturday.

Because last weekend was ``the transition time,`` according to Poole, only warnings were issued by the patrolling inspectors. The city will begin ticketing violators this week, Poole said.

In May, the city council voted to impose the ban one month earlier than last year because of a flurry of complaints about low water pressure during a warm weekend in April. Homeowners and builders will not be able to sod their property until September, and sprinkling is allowed only during the early morning on weekdays.

Although the city is only 30 miles from Lake Michigan, it must draw its water from wells supplied by a falling underground water source until a lake water pipeline is turned on, probably not before 1990.

The Northern Illinois Home Builders Association, an organization of Du Page and Kane county builders, criticized the ban, saying that the city`s three new wells, scheduled to start pumping this month, should add enough capacity to the water supply to cover the heavy demand on the system after sod is laid. To take root, the new grass needs heavy watering for up to two weeks after laying.

But the builders association won a variance to the ban at Monday`s city council meeting. The association asked to be allowed to lay sod this month at 15 homes that will be presented as part of its Cavalcade of Homes promotion beginning in late July. The planning for the promotion, begun last October, assumed that the ban would be only for the months of July and August because of the additional capacity supplied by the new wells, according to association executive vice president Mark Harrison.